Olivia Chow elected as Toronto’s mayor in byelection, winning city’s top job | Globalnews.ca

Voters in Toronto have elected Olivia Chow as mayor of Canada’s largest municipality.

In a race that saw a staggering 102 candidates, Global News projected Chow as the winner in Monday night’s byelection, garnering more than 260,000 votes as of 9 p.m.

Chow is a former NDP MP and was a city councillor for Toronto starting in the ’90s for more than a decade, with a long history in Canadian politics as a progressive left politician.

The 66-year-old beat out other top candidates like former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, former city councillor Ana Bailao, current city councillors Josh Matlow and Brad Bradford, former Liberal provincial education minister Mitzie Hunter and right-wing columnist Anthony Furey.

Chow dominated the polls for most of the campaign in a very crowded race. An Ipsos poll done for Global News pegged Chow as the front-runner with an unassailable lead.

The byelection was triggered after former mayor John Tory made a stunning admission in February to having an “inappropriate relationship” with a former member of his staff. Tory had just entered his third term as mayor after the 2022 municipal elections were held across Ontario on Oct. 24.

Voters were then sent back to the polls on Monday to decide who would lead Toronto. Chow was chosen.

Chow moved to Canada from Hong Kong when she was 13 years old. Her family lived in an apartment in St. James Town.

She was introduced to politics after working for NDP MP Dan Heap, whom she credits as her mentor. Chow was then elected as a school board trustee for the TDSB in 1985, a position she held for six years.

She joined her late husband Jack Layton (who later became the federal NDP leader) as a city councillor for Toronto in 1991. She was then first elected to the House of Commons as an NDP MP for Trinity-Spadina in 2006.

In 2014, Chow ran against Tory and now-Premier Doug Ford in the Toronto election but came in third place.

She tried getting her seat back in Parliament in 2015 but lost and since then she had stayed out of politics until this year, when she announced her bid for mayor of Toronto, a second run for the top job.

When it comes to what Toronto residents are concerned with the most, the top five issues were affordability in housing, cost of living, crime and safety, spending taxpayers’ money wisely, and public transit.

Other top issues for voters include homelessness, controlling taxes, traffic congestion, economy and jobs, city finance and budget, social services and fighting climate change.

Chow’s campaign is headlined by a pledge to get the city back into social housing development and an annual $100-million investment in a program to purchase affordable homes and transfer them to non-profits and land trusts, part of a larger pledge to crack down on so-called renovictions.

Chow said, if elected, she would also establish the Toronto Renters Action Committee to work on anti-renoviction bylaws, advocate for rent control, review policies and “hold the city accountable.”

She wants to expand rent supplements to 1,000 homes and boost the number of 24-7 respite homeless shelters, promises funded by an expanded land transfer tax on homes purchased for $3 million and above.

Her critics argue there are candidates better positioned to take on the city’s challenges.

Chow has not delivered a fully costed platform and will not say how high she would raise property taxes, though she says any increase would be modest. Her campaign has faced questions about whether she is well-placed to negotiate financial support for Toronto’s nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, especially with a premier openly hostile to her campaign.

If elected, Chow also said she would reverse the recent TTC service cuts and “significantly improve transit services to make sure it is fast and reliable.”

Chow has also promised to get cell service for everyone on the TTC.

Congratulations roll in

Premier Doug Ford congratulated Chow Monday evening, saying she has “proven her desire and dedication to serving the city.”

“While we’re not always going to agree on everything, what we can agree on is our shared commitment to making Toronto a place where businesses, families and workers can thrive,” he said in a statement posted to Twitter.

Ford said he will “work with anyone ready to work with out government to better out city and province.”

“There’s nothing we can’t achieve when we work together,” he continued. “Together, let’s focus on building a strong Toronto for generations to come.”

In her concession speech, candidate Ana Bailão also congratulated Chow.

“Congratulations Olivia,” she said. “Our city faces many challenges, and I wish you all the best as you navigate these challenges alongside city council and working with other governments.

She said it was time for unity: “In our city’s most challenging moments, Toronto has always had a way of coming together to find solutions,” she continued. “Now, with Olivia Chow as our next mayor, it’s time to come together.”

Bailão was the shock story of election night, surging into a comfortable second place ahead of Mark Saunders, and polling significantly higher than estimates anticipated.

Saunders offered his congratulations to Chow, saying she “fought a tough fight and, at the end of the day, came out victorious” on the day.

“We have to do everything we can to make this city an amazing city, (the) incredible city that it is, but we have so much (more) to do,” he said in a concession speech Monday. “So, we have to support Olivia Chow in that position of mayor because there is a lot of work we all have to do.”

— with files from The Canadian Press